Conventional search engines operating in a networked computer environment such as the World Wide Web or in an individual computer can provide search results in response to entry of a user's search query. In many instances, the search results are ranked in accordance with the search engine's scoring or ranking system or method. For example, conventional search engines score or rank documents of a search result for a particular query based on the contents of the documents, such as on the number of times a keyword or particular word or phrase appears in each document in the search results. Documents include, for example, web pages of various formats, such as HTML, XML, XHTML; Portable Document Format (PDF) files; and word processor and application program document files. Other search engines base scoring or ranking on more than the content of the document. For example, one known method, described in an article entitled “The Anatomy of a Large-Scale Hypertextual Search Engine,” by Sergey Brin and Lawrence Page, assigns a degree of importance to a document, such as a web page, based on the link structure of the web page. Other conventional methods involve selling a higher score or rank in search results for a particular query to third parties that want to attract users or customers to their websites.
In some instances, a user of a search engine may enter an obscure or infrequently used search query. In response to such queries, conventional search engines can return unreliable search results since there is relatively little data to rank or score search results for the search query.
If an Internet search engine returns more than one search result in response to a search query, the search results may be displayed as a list of links to the documents associated with the search results. A user may browse and visit a website associated with one or more of the search results to evaluate whether the website is relevant to the user's search query. For example, a user may manipulate a mouse or another input device and “click” on a link to a particular search result to view a website associated with the search result. In many instances, the user will browse and visit several websites provided in the search result, clicking on links associated with each of the several websites to access various websites associated with the search results before locating useful or relevant information to address the user's search query.
If the user is not satisfied with the initial search results, the user may decide to change or modify the search query to a second, typically-related query and obtain a new or similar set of search results. After inputting the second query and receiving new search results, the user may manipulate a mouse or another input device and “click” on a link to a particular search result to view a website associated with the search result. As before, the user may browse and visit several websites associated with the search results returned for the second query by “clicking” on links associated with the websites returned in the search results.
Clicking on multiple links to multiple websites associated with a single set of search results can be time consuming. It is desirable to improve the ranking algorithm used by search engines and to therefore provide users with better search results.